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| November 20, 2013

Welcome To The State Of The Industry Forecaster!

As we wrap up 2013, connect produces a State of the Industry report to help RSPA members examine how different facets of our industry are faring and, more importantly, what we have to look forward to in 2014. We went in-depth with some industry experts to get their forecast on the state of the retail technology industry.

This year’s State of the Industry report is noticeably different from the past few years. And it is safe to say that next year’s report might look different still. In years past, we have always had an industry expert comment of Kiosks. Our expert, Frances Mendelsohn, told us that this year, that the kiosk industry is “poor.” She says:

“Along with many of my competitors, I am in the process of downsizing the company and expect to be fully closed by next year. The one thing that is really changing is the use of a smart phone and its apps in lieu of kiosks. Many things that people used a kiosk for even one year ago are now completely handled by a mobile device. Things like self-checkout may still be done by kiosk but many other things are rapidly migrating to the smaller and much more economical devices.”

In light of this, we will not report on Kiosks in this year’s report and we will include “mobile” in next year’s report.